Today was a two-fer, if you don’t mind the expression.

I was really brave (yeh, right) and headed out with all the others this morning to board the bus. 

First up was the Stift Melk, complete with tour guide.

(blog hint -if you click on the picture – you will get a larger pix and see both the Stift and the docking location for the river ships)

Practically speaking, the bus, because it is restricted to roads, took 15+ minutes to toodle up and around before arriving at the designated parking lot. We were dropped off with the announcement that the way back to the ship was our choice: come back here after the tour and board any shuttle with the correct sign in the windshield or head down through town and walk back.

After a significant wait, we were escorted through the Monastery/Museum. All the exhibit rooms were dark to protect the paintings and objects d’art. Along with really clear signs banning cameras, movie cameras, and phones taking photos. I think they were serious which means that the only internal photos I have are of the long, long corridors –

Our guide was good, clear, and knowledgeable. I certainly will give him that. But the rooms were crowded. Perhaps a quarter of our tour kept their masks on in spite of being told it was a good idea. Certainly no one in any other group was bothering. Of note – yesterday’s Austrian numbers were 40k active cases. The trend is down, but still…

Ok…. I don’t remember being here before. , but George has clear memories of herding kids along the foot path. Same as we took back to the ship. 

Lunch was meh – pretty but..

the two rolled pastry shells were stuffed with spinach. Service was a bit slow and it would have been nice to have had a hot lunch. 

I stayed on the ship for the afternoon, stitching and listening to a book. It just seemed like a better idea than chancing the rain. 

Tomorrow is Vienna.